Our Catalogues

BEAUCHAMP PROCTOR, William. The Following Short Account of a Court Martial. Held on Board His Majesty's Ship Culloden, in Bombay Harbour, on the 27th March 1807. Is printed by Captain Wm. Beauchamp Proctor, for the information & satisfaction of his friends; a publication thereof in the newspapers, of that place having been prevented. Bombay, April 16, 1807. Small 4to. (Bombay? Privately printed.) 1807
Stitched as issued in plain paper wrappers, the front wrapper inscribed 'Court Martial of Captain Beauchamp Proctor of his His Majesty's Ship Dedaigneuse March 1807'. [ii], 10pp

¶Not recorded on Copac; no copies located. Captain William Beauchamp Proctor, 1781-1861, was commander of HMS Dedaigneuse during an engagement in the Indian Ocean with the French frigate La Semillante on 19 November 1806. Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, commander-in-chief of naval forces in the East Indies, expressed dissatisfaction with his conduct in abandoning 'the chase of a flying enemy which it was his duty to pursue and destroy', so Beauchamp Proctor requested that a court martial 'be assembled to make a minute investigation into my conduct on that occasion'. After hearing the evidence, the court considered that Beauchamp Proctor had acted with the greatest zeal, judgement and skill, and that it was only his ship's bad sailing characteristics that had allowed the French ship to escape. It concluded that 'no blame whatever is to be attached to Captain William Beauchamp Proctor on that occasion', and Beauchamp Proctor was therefore honourably acquitted of the charges preferred against him. This verdict having been read, the court's president addressed the Captain: 'I have the highest satisfaction in restoring to you a sword which I am confident you will ever wear with honour to yourself and with credit to your country: may you long live to enjoy it'. This copy belonged to Captain John Wood, 1766–1820, one of the officers listed in this account as sitting on the court martial, and its title is inscribed 'Captn. Jo. Wood H.M. Ship Phaeton. 1807'. Wood himself had unsuccessfully engaged the La Semillante in the Philippines in August 1805, when fire from shore batteries prevented him from pressing home his attack (see William James, Naval History of Great Britain, vol. 3, 1823, pp. 500–4). It is evident from the statement on the titlepage that the newspapers in Bombay had been prevented from reporting the trial, presumably because the authorities were unhappy about publicising a verdict that vindicated a subordinate officer invoking legal action against his commander-in-chief. Beauchamp Proctor, therefore, personally published this Short Account to distribute amongst friends and colleagues. It bears no imprint, but it must have been produced soon after the trial's conclusion, quite possibly (if not certainly) in Bombay itself. A brief notice of the court martial was later published in the Asiatic Annual Register, vol. IX for the Year 1807 (London, 1809), pp. 79–80. The action between the Dedaigneuse and La Semillante is described in the biography of Beauchamp Proctor by John Marshall in Royal Naval Biography, Supplement, pt 1 (1827), pp. 165–8. Marshall records that Beauchamp Proctor returned to England for health reasons in the autumn of 1809, but wrongly gives the year of the action as 1808 and the court martial as 1809, an error perpetuated in several subsequent narratives.